(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best landscape architecture books

Design with Nature by Ian McHarg

I started reading this one a while ago, but was sidetracked by life and it sat collecting dust. I just started it again, but haven't gone very far. This book is supposed to be the bible for planners and landscape architects, so I'm excited to get back into it.

I just finished reading Need for the Bike by Paul Fournel. This book is a collection of short stories and musings written by a lifetime cyclist. He does an amazing job conveying feelings associated with biking and I devoured this book much quicker than I expected. My wife bought it for me for Christmas because it was supposed to be similar to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, another book I really enjoyed.

I also finally finished The Landscape of Man, which I had been working through. I still don't see how this one was supposed to impact me as much as others claim it should, but it was an interesting read.

Here is a pretty good book in English about niwaki specifically. I think you're right that there is an aspect that is meant to seem effortless but the amount of work that goes into just the pruning is incredible. And everything is placed, the rocks weren't just found there. There are all sorts of symbolic arrangements to those too, like they bury them halfway, again to give the impression that it's very old. Now a lot of those gardens actually are very old but really not left up to chance that much. It's like a whole art form that we barely have in the west but there are some Japanese style gardens here.

Here's some books from my library:

The Affordable Housing Reader - Basics on how affordable housing in the US works (or how it doesn't work...)

Cities for People/Walkable City/Death and Life of Great American Cities - Classics that really pertain to most things

The Public Wealth of Cities - How to leverage public/city assets to benefit the most amount of people

The Color of Law - How racism has shaped our cities

Happy City - Planning for social health

> especially leftist urbanism (anti suburbs and single family housing, pro mass-transit etc)

I'd be weary of calling this 'leftist urbanism,' since all of these are perfectly compatible with right-wing viewpoints, just handled very differently. You're looking more for sustainable urbanism and the social impacts of it. The books I have recommended above do all have a centrist or left lean to it though.

That is the only one I didn't pass on the first try. Was this the first section of the LARE that you took? It takes some getting use to the way they ask questions. I have a copy of the old Section A practice book, link here (https://www.amazon.com/LARE-Review-Section-Practice-Problems/dp/159126085X) that was a big help. I believe section one is the same as former section A. If you PM me I'd be happy to send it to you. Good luck and don't give up!

This book has great essays from a number of very famous and influential designers: http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Landscape-Architecture-Reader-Studies/dp/0812218213

Also this is a Q&A that gives a better look into an individual process: http://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Cabinet-Curiosities-Search-Position/dp/3037783044

I used to install landscape lighting professionally. Couple problems in that picture.

1. To the right of the house the eave mounted down lights there is only one. There should be symmetry.
   
   
2. Lighting from the eaves down didn't give a good angle and therefore caused hotspotting and bad diffusion of light.
   
   
3. the porchlights and one of the garage lights are 3000k while the rest of the lights are 2700k again symmetry and cohesion is off. This creates artifacts in the overall scene that are not pleasant to the eye also on the porch there is a strange light just hot spotting the window. I have no idea why someone decided to do that.
   
   
4. The downlights that are angled towards each other are at different angles. This does not help define the shape of the house and again affects symmetry.
   
   
5. The whole 1st floor entrance was neglected, the columns being lit would have really tied the house together. Always light entrances slightly more. This visually identifies entrances.
   
   
6. Zero path lighting, uplighting on trees or range in lighting. This is not a complete scene.
   
   There is no depth, no color, no emphasis nothing. It's a bland portrait and the designer clearly just picked out a couple places for lighting he though was ok. I have to say it. This is bad lighting. It may look good from the untrained eye but this is an example of trying to do too much with too little so they placed the lights to wash over everything. If I was ripple electrical I wouldn't put this on my website or my blog, for customers looking for good lighting they are going to quickly skip this company.
   
   Here is what I would have done.
   
   Uplighting instead of downlighting. On the right side of the house 2 8 watt 2700k spot uplights mounted to the right of the windows to accent the white window frames all the way up, angled to catch the eaves as well.
   
   By the entrance, replace the porch lights with 2700k lamps, light each column.
   
   On the second story mount three wall wash fixtures to the gutter with 6 watt lamps and a diffusor. Two on the eaves one on the windows. This will provide a subtle contrast to the bottom floor but still allow the white eaves and window frames to pop. It will also eliminate the hotspotting.
   
   For the garage, more than likely they didn't have the opportunity or consent to mount well lights in the ground facing up on to the garage door and eaves that would be ideal. Otherwise I would have just put one downlight at the center and matched up the garage carriage lights with the same color temp.
   
   And then some damn lights on the foliage and gate. None of the stone had any light on it, stone has a great texture for lighting it's a shame none was hit.
   
   Ripple electrical you need to buy this book. This is who I learned from.
   
   The Lighting Bible: The Professional Guide to Architectural landscape Lighting the Creation of a Lighting Portrait https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541107365/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_SehYCbXP6Z299

I love how you americans have great metaphores for all of these things. I'm making a dutch version of this.

If Professor Reid was there, he was in the MLA program. I was an undergrad, so I did not see him. The professors I can remember were:

Don Austin (the A in EDAW). (design and construction)

Tom Woodfin. There was a geologist who assisted him, and I can't remember his name to save my life. I think his first name was Art. (design and theory)

Ed Hoag (graphics teacher)

Harlow Landphair (mostly construction. He seemed uninterested in drawing and traced off a light table for perspectives)

Michael Murphy https://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Architecture-Theory-Evolving-Thought/dp/1577663578 (design and professional practice)

Nancy Volkman (who has since passed away) (landscape history and interim department head)

John Rodiek (ran the MLA program) (design)

Chang-Shan Huang (who was just getting started in 96) (graphics and design)

and John Motloch who left for Ball State. (design theory and using 50 words to say something that you could state in 5.)

There were others, to be sure, like Rodney Hill and Robert Schiffauer, but those were the core professors that we saw all the time in Hotel Langford.

I've read that book that you mentioned, but it was years after I graduated. It would have been really useful back then.

Two great books, full of inspiring maps. Lots of ideas to borrow, that don't need Illustrator.

​

A Map of the World

and

Cartographic Grounds

​

​

There are a lot of hidden costs associated with free parking too. For instance, it makes cities less walkable and reduces available building space.

video... though that's a pretty brief coverage. There's a book I haven't read. And one of my podcasts (Planet Money? Freakanomics?) did an episode, which I cannot now find.

Some architectural drawing books are your best bets then. Like:
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Landscape-Chip-Sullivan/dp/0471430358
http://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Graphics-Grant-Reid/dp/0823073335/

I know this is pricey but this is a textbook that I had to get for a landscape design studio. Lots of great info on exactly what you're talking about. Maybe you can find a used copy or otherwise get ahold of one somewhow.

Constructing Landscape

I'd see if your local library has a book like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Garden-Design-Bible-Step-step/dp/060063244X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523142576&sr=1-1&keywords=tim+newbury

This will help you start figuring out what you want out of a backyard.

Here's another one:

https://www.amazon.com/Less-More-Garden-Ideas-Designing/dp/1604697911/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1523122690&sr=8-4&keywords=small+garden+design

This. So much.

I also do a lot of work for DOTs and other agencies as part of the NEPA process. While the writing required is no doubt technical at times, it also must be tight and legally defensible, and there's a difference between that and useless jargon and plannerese.

In undergrad Planning in Plain English was required reading for our senior capstone class. It's definitely worth a look through if you want your writing to sound informed and thoughtful (to please your client) and at the same time accessible (to please your intended audience).

I don't have too much experience with Landscape Architecture besides about 6 months interning at a firm, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Books, I honestly don't know "the best"

I did however read these 3

http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Elements-Landscape-Architectural-Design/dp/0881334782

http://www.amazon.com/Basics-Landscape-Architecture-01-Design/dp/2940411123

http://www.amazon.com/Basics-Landscape-Architecture-02-Ecological/dp/2940411441/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

They should get you started on Landscape stuff

For general architecture knowledge (if you don't get the other 3 get this one....if you do get the other 3, then get this one too)

http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Francis-D-K-Ching/dp/0471752169/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2


Tips for the first day.

same with any job, do what needs to be done and try to look happy doing it

Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources

Plowman's Folly

The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife

Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change

There are a number of theories currently being floated, but I don't think we have a conpletely satisfying answer to your question (which is, I think, the most important question to ask). We assumed, for so long, that the 'Anglo-Saxons' claimed to be Angles and Saxons because they simply were, and we've struggled to adapt our understanding to the realization that these identities (like all 'national' identites) were inventive reimaginings of complicated history rather than the inevitable products of simple migrations of different, discrete people groups.

James Gerrard suggests that, after Roman power broke down in the fifth century, elites began to assume more personal responsibility for fighting off bandits and conteolling violence which, before, had been reserved (mostly) for the Roman army. As a result, elites started displaying weapons and furnishing bands of warriors about themselves - and these war bands were modeled on the 'barbarian' styles that had been popular in the late Roman army itself (the late Roman army dressed as barbarians, named its units after famous barbarian groups, and recruited heavily from barbarians, and so by the fifth century, the line between Roman solider and barbarian had grown very fuzzy). Gerrard's argument gets a bit fuzzy toward the end as he tries to explain why militarization resulted in the adoption of barbarian identities as well as barbarian military clothing and weapon styles, but it boils down to the idea that the old Roman institutions weren't a useful political model anymore, and claiming to be barbarians made more political sense when organizing small kingdoms with warbands at their core.

Toby Martin recently looked at the development of brooch styles in East Anglia, and shows how brooches suggest early connections between Anglia (in Germany) and East Anglia in England. He suggests that the movement of brooches among people in these regions is tied to the movements of other kinds of connections (not just migrations, but also friendships, trade, etc) across this north sea region. Tom Williamson made a similar argument a few years ago about the ease of travel between Anglia and north-east England. This suggests that the Angles were a good neighboring region to claim connections with, and graves like Sutton Hoo (which had a lot of goods from all around the north sea) show that having connections across that body of water were really important in the early seventh century. Claiming to be Roman (or Trojan) might sound very grand, but claiming to be related to the ancestors of important trading partners across the north sea was possibly more useful.

But we might also (and I'm sliding into speculation here) benefit from comparing changes in English identity to events on the continent. Britain might still have claimed to be Roman in the early sixth century (Gildas, a British preacher writing sometime in the first half of the sixth century, thought his people still had some kind of affinity for the Romans across the chanel), but Emperor Justinian's wars in the mid sixth century showed that the Roman empire did not consider the kingdoms ruling the terrorities of the western Roman empire to be legitimate successors to Roman identity: Theoderic may have claimed to be ruling Italy as a representative of the Roman empire, but Justinian saw the Ostrogoths as an enemy to be driven out of Italy. It's not very long after these events that we start to see evidence of the new Germanic identities emerging in England (and there are also changes in how the Franks in formerly Roman Gaul saw themselves in relation to the Roman empire). Perhaps, with the Roman empire flexing its muscles across the channel, it was safer not to base your political identity on anything too closely related to Roman history, and instead choose mythical ancestors who had successfully resisted Roman conquest back when the empire was at its height?

Landscape Architecture, Fourth Edition: A Manual of Land Planning and Design 4th Edition

This book covers urban designe very well. It also includes useful illustrations in the margins.

http://www.amazon.com/Niwaki-Pruning-Training-Shaping-Japanese/dp/0881928356

https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Scientists-Engineers-Foundations-Connections/dp/0534466850

https://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Man-Environment-Prehistory-Expanded/dp/0500278199

https://www.amazon.com/Design-Land-Development-Landscape-Architecture/dp/0674198700

https://www.amazon.com/Landscapes-History-2nd-Philip-Pregill/dp/0471293288

https://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Architecture-Documentation-Standards-Principles/dp/0470402172/ref=nodl_